


I took your laugh by the collar (and it knew not to swing)

by velificatio



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Body Image, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 16:53:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3495833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velificatio/pseuds/velificatio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cobb handles his last debt, but the only fallout is Arthur's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I took your laugh by the collar (and it knew not to swing)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by grizzly-bear-bane for a fic meme’s number 5: things you didn’t say at all.

“I can square things with Cobol on my own.” Cobb had said.

It never once crossed Arthur’s mind that he might end up a part of that bargain.

Three hours discharged from the hospital, Saito generously allowed him one night in a Tokyo suite to make himself presentable for his flight to Milan. On the drive there Arthur kept glancing down at the blunt pale tips of his nails, silently calculating how many weeks his nails spent growing back over his fingers.

He couldn’t see swollen spots of pink anymore, or the holes where the utility nails had been inserted. Once in a while though, he’d throb as if they were still inside him.

“ _Can’t really blame your partner, can you?_ ” Melbourne, frequently in the role of “good interrogator” had remarked to him. “ _He’s got kids to look out for, who the fuck do you have?_ ”

Two of Arthur’s bank accounts had been emptied in exchange for one of his interrogators informing on his whereabouts to the head of Cobol’s biggest corporate rival. His rescue wasn’t an act of charity. Arthur resigned himself to understanding he was now indefinitely in Saito’s debt.

Arthur bathed himself for hours. He didn’t linger on his naked reflection. He’d been sporting scars about his body long before Cobol caught him. Fresh ones weren’t a source of concern.

When he fell asleep at 3am that morning, hunched in on himself in a shower corner, his skin smelled clean for the first time in months but he dreamt he’d scraped himself raw down to the muscle and could still see dirt and grime caked over his eyeballs.

At 6am he was sporting a crisp button-up and vest, slacks looser on his legs than he’d prefer as he boarded his flight. The way they shifted on him with ease an unpleasant reminder of just how much weight he’d lost in eight months.

 

+

 

General Josiah Adams trained Arthur from day one of his entry into Project Somnacin. He’d been the one man who told him frankly to get used to dying, then waking up, and no it would never get easier. But he could learn to get used to it and with that familiarity came desensitizing.

 Cobol took his life fourteen times. The shade of Mal was indeed a ghost by comparison.

If anyone was going to help Arthur reshape himself, it was Adams. So it wasn’t hard to drug Adams’ sickly wife and have her smuggled out of the rehabilitation clinic to an assigned location. And it wasn’t hard to break into a plush Milan flat, wait, and then aim his silencer squarely between Adams’ frantic eyes. Arthur cut to the chase.

“You’ll get your wife back when our business is finished. I was taken, spent five months in a hole in Mombasa. They went inside my head on multiple occasions but never found what they wanted.” Arthur’s gaze went cold, silencing Adams’ attempts to protest. “I’m not here to have you fix me like nothing happened, I’m here because you’re going to teach me the discipline needed to cover it up so no one else can see it.”

Saito’s doctors kept Ms. Adams alive and in good health for three months. Then Arthur left her location on a notepad to General Adams, with a blunt promise that seeking retribution would end in death for them both.

He departed from Spain towards Brazil for his first new extraction for Saito.

 

+

 

Adams’ conditioning didn’t help Arthur cope with all the effects of his captivity. A week out of Milan and he still needed to consciously force himself to eat at least one meal a day. Cobol had been willing to allow many things to happen to Arthur but death wasn’t one of them. Sometimes he gagged, remembering the pipe put down his throat that was no longer there. His portions never took up an entire plate.

 

+

 

Arthur’s plane touched down in Santos, he drove a pre-purchased car over the Rodovia Anchieta towards his destination.

Twenty miles in his Proclus issued smart phone rang.

Even with the select group of people Saito informed him had access to his number Arthur never made a habit of answering a call without checking the number. It took him under a minute to identify the number as one of Cobb’s.

Arthur set the phone aside and drove into São Paulo with the sound of feedback pulsing in his mind.

 

+

 

It was just after sunset when Arthur reached the city. He wouldn’t be convening with his team until the following morning. Having time to kill left him restless, needing to scratch an itch he’d put on hold for too long.

He checked into a luxury master suite and traded his three piece for a tight white v-neck shirt and black pants tailored right down to his specific measurements. Young as the night was Arthur felt no desire to linger anywhere for too long. He headed straight for _A Loca_.

Arthur had to be in a certain mood to spend any time on the dancefloor. Said mood would probably not occur for a long time. He ordered a whiskey, heedless to the bartender’s snort and took a seat at an empty table for two.

It was after shooting down three hopeful approaches that Arthur’s attention was drawn back to the bar. Or rather, the lanky, t-shirt clad figure that’d slinked out from the restroom area towards the bar. Now sporting a moustache, goatee, and minus a thumb and little finger on his left hand, Nash looked at as bright eyed as Arthur remembered.

He’d yet to lose his distaste for how uninhibited and guileless Nash always managed to appear. But it had never stopped Arthur from fucking him.

When Nash finally noticed Arthur he paled, glancing at all the club exits. Such an open, unguarded reaction answered Arthur’s most pressing question. Nash did not enter _A Loca_ ever expecting to see Arthur there.

That settled it for Arthur. He left his seat with his whiskey, making his way up to the bar. Despite his apparent anxiety, Nash’s gaze travelled from the bottom up on Arthur, lingering on the span of his legs.

Arthur sat on the stool next to Nash. “That your pickup game then?” He gestured lazily towards Nash’s left hand. “A well-practiced sob story?”

Nash blinked. Then he laughed in disbelief, shaking his head. “How are you _still_ the coldest bitch I’ve ever met and I’ve met so many bitches by now?”

“Mmh, guess I excel in all areas.” Arthur smiled. “So are you Cobol’s bitch now or did they cut their leash off with your fingers?”

“Fuck you Arthur,” Nash’s shove was too light for his words. “I ought to be asking you the same damn thing. You’re not exactly looking like peak material, no matter how tight your clothes fit.”

“I didn’t have to turn to save my ass.”

“Maybe, you probably bent a lot though.”

“Funny. Where are you staying tonight?” Arthur asked, looking Nash over. Nash was the type that got a particular look about himself when he was approaching violence and Arthur knew he could still snap his neck with minimal effort.

It was obvious though, killing Arthur was far from the first thing Nash wanted to do.

Nash shrugged. “Like you don’t fucking know. Got a nice little spot uptown, plenty of room in the important places. Shower, bed.”

Rolling his eyes, Arthur plucked the shot glass from Nash’s fingers right before it touched his lips. He downed the drink without breaking eye contact. “We’re going there now.” He said. “I’m driving.”

 

+

Foreplay hadn’t counted for much between the two of them before. Nash led them to the bedroom once the elevator hit the top floor of the loft, Arthur’s teeth marks fresh along his neck.

His bed was a king size, unsurprisingly unmade, black sheets rumpled about and pillows laid askew. Arthur didn’t comment on it beyond a grimace, just started undressing.

Openly leering, Nash watched Arthur strip for a moment. He didn’t flinch at the newest scars on Arthur’s chest and back. “You’re not gonna call me Cobb or anything are you?” He asked. Arthur strode up and punched him in the mouth before his smirk became a full smile.

“Never say that to me again, understand?” Arthur said, eyeing Nash from where he’d fallen down, his stare hot with lust and anger.  When he smiled at Arthur his mouth was red before he spit onto the floor.

“Sure thing sweetheart, I’ll be a proper gentlemen to you tonight.”

By the time Nash picked himself up Arthur was naked and waiting.

“I can’t believe we’re still doing this.” Nash said with a grin.

Arthur would have rolled his eyes but he knew Nash expected that. “Because you’re a two timing little shit or because I just hit you?”

“Both. So you’re just as fucked up as the rest of us alley rats huh?” Nash asked, panting as he kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his jeans. “Not too good for me anymore?”

“I’ve always been fucked up and I’m still too good for you.” Arthur said, biting Nash’s lips. He’d meant to kiss but Nash moaned like he actually had. Either way Arthur wasn’t going to apologize. There was blood in his mouth and arousal sweeping hot over him when he yanked off Nash’s shirt and shoved him down onto the mattress.

Cigarettes, matches, lube and a small pile of condoms sat beside a liquor bottle on a bedside table. _So fucking trashy,_ Arthur thought, pleased regardless by the easy access. With his slicked palm he pumped Nash’s cock to full hardness, all fine technique, no time for teasing. Listened to his panting and grunts as he bucked into Arthur’s fist, his erection eventually the same impressive length Arthur remembered but had never once remarked on. Thick and heavy in Arthur’s grasp.

That made him lick his lips, lean over and spit as wet as he could, speeding up his strokes. Nash groaned out a long, “ _Fuuuck_ ,” and Arthur’s laugh was smug. Some things never changed.

He rolled the condom on impatiently, climbing onto the bed and straddling Nash’s hips. The whole time Nash stared at him like he was the hottest thing on Earth. Nearly made Arthur laugh again, dry and unkind.

He’d left Tokyo months ago. Over his ribs Arthur’s skin seemed fleshy as paper, the tuck of his waist before the usually narrow flair of his hips smaller than petite and his cheekbones were sharp in a way that drew emphasis rather than defined. Bluntly put, he looked a short step towards ill and miles away from sexy.

But if Nash had an emaciation fetish, Arthur didn’t much care. He wanted to be fucked, wanted something inside him, spreading him apart and not aiming to cleave secrets and confessions from the innermost regions of his mind. And Nash wanted to fuck him.

 

 Who gave a damn about anything else?

 

+

 

They fucked until exhaustion won out over endurance. Two orgasms down Arthur collapsed onto the bed beside Nash, knowing walking upright and straight tomorrow would be a small feat.

Nash was panting, laughing when he could, and seemingly adamant about not taking his hands off Arthur. His stomach and chest were a decorated in red lines from Arthur’s nails, a particularly nasty bite mark turning purple along his collarbone.

“You know when we locked eyes over that bar I was expecting to get my throat slit in the back alley.” Nash said it like it was a particularly hilarious joke, caressing the bruises blooming over a scar on Arthur’s hip with his left hand’s three fingers. “Thought you’d want my head on a stick, not my dick up your ass.”

“Who’s to say I can’t have both in the opposite order?” Arthur groused, smirking when Nash stiffened for a moment.

“You’re not going to kill me.” He said with only a slight waiver in confidence.

“No.” Arthur agreed. “Not unless you try to kill me.”

Nash watched him light a cigarette he’d retrieved. Arthur took his time inhaling, let the chemicals churn down through him before blowing out in a slow exhale. “Just like that?” Nash asked. “After I sold you out; not even to prove you’re the better man?”

Arthur clicked his tongue, chasing after the smoke, “I never once said I was a better man than you.”

“Didn’t have to out loud.” Nash shrugged, the hand stroking Arthur wrapping around his waist with no small amount of ambitious possessiveness. “Doesn’t matter. Down here it’s all rats, snakes and broken bottles anyway.”

Staring off into the shadows engulfing the rest of the bedroom, Arthur thought of the one missed call on his phone, children laughing in a backyard built on blood money and the weight of his loaded die. Everyone in his world, cut from the same twisted cloth. He had no refute to give Nash.


End file.
